


Palmer's Kiss

by NorroenDyrd



Series: Love is No Illusion [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Awkward Crush, Body Image, Childhood Trauma, College of Winterhold - Freeform, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Falling In Love, Flashbacks, Gen, Magical Accidents, Past Child Abuse, Physical Abuse, References to Shakespeare, Scarification, Scars, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Shakespeare Quotations, Teacher-Student Relationship, Tsunderes, Winterhold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 21:13:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11722659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: A thuggish Orc from the Thieves Guild came to Winterhold to learn how to turn invisible during her heists - and is now irrevocably falling for her absent-minded mentor.





	Palmer's Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Note that this is an older work, meant to give some idea of what Umtaz is like, as she is about to make an appearance in another fan fic of mine, Uncharted Lands. I have since had some ideas on possibly overhaulting her relationship with Drevis (mainly, I now think that he did pay a lot of attention to her straight away), but I hope this fic, outdated as it is, still has some value as a standalone.

As Umtaz trots down the winding stone stairs to the ground floor, she suddely, and completely (like, totally) out of the blue, catches herself whistling. Quietly and far from skillfully (she ain't one of them fancy bards, after all) - but still. The sound that is pushing its way through her teeth is unmistakable.  
  
After racking her brain for a moment or two, she realizes that she is trying to mimic the tune she once heard at some inn or other - while sneaking into the back room to change the joint's business ledger. Dragon Comes, was it? No, wait - Dragonborn Comes! Yeah, that's what it's called. Dragonborn Comes. Quite a catchy tune, that, even if the lyrics are a load of mushy garbage.  
  
Seriously; after all that dung went down in Whiterun and some overexcited pink-faced guard fella did a happy dance round her, ranting on and on about how she must be that fabled 'Dragonborn' - she trotted obediently to the High-Whatever place, up those darned, slippery, crumbling steps straight on into the swirling icy clouds; only to endure a long and painfully boring lecture from some hundred-year-old monk or something.  
  
She knew it was an utter waste of time before he even finished. For one thing, she is not cut out for that high-brow contemplation and master-your-Voice thing he kept babbling about. She is a Ratway thug, darnit - the only difference since the Whiterun skirmish is that, apparently, now she is a Ratway thug that can kill dragons. Doesn't make that much of a difference.  
  
And for another thing - she can't stand monks, or priests, or preachers of any kind. She hates them - and that hatred downright steeps through her body, right to the tiniest coil of her innards, so that she begins to retch whenever she hears one of those blighters speak. And the feeling is not baseless, either - she has seen more than enough of that robed lot to have a reason for being overwhelmed with disgust.  
  
Of all the fakes she has had to deal with (usually as part of some Thieves' Guild job), the priests are the worst. All they ever do is blather on and on about kindness, and wisdom, and virtue, so that the common folks begin to tear up and grope inside their pockets for a donation. And in the meanwhile, all around them, the poor are dying of hunger and disease; and those who are too stubborn to rot away in some rickety old hovel, slink off into the back alleys and the dark, reeking sewers, hoping that sneaking in the shadows and cutting purses will help them make a better living. And what do priests and monks do? Nothing! Just roll their eyes to the sky and keep mumbling their meaningless prayers!  
  
Throughout her life, she has only met one priest that did not make her want to puke. A sad-looking Dunmer fellow from the Riften Mara-worshipping gang. He helped her out, big time, when she was a kid - earning a gruff shove in the forearm and a deliberately curt, 'You are all right', which was the preteen Umtaz's expression of highest approval. She has been trying to seek him out since her return to Skyrim, but with little success. It is as if the elf had vanished into thin air - and the only priests and monks that are left are of the revolting holier-than-thou kind.  
  
So yeah, she was less than thrilled with all that Dragonborn mumbo-jumbo, and as soon as the blighted old geezer stopped to catch his wheezing breath, she shoved her middle finger into his face to show what she thought of him and his ilk, and marched off to do an unfinished sweep job. And after that little waste of a trip, she has always been making a point of raising her eyebrows - thick and bushy and pierced by a pair of curving metal pins - whenever she hears a bard holler all that nonsense about warriors' hearts and something-something Nord arts.  
  
But now, for all her scoffing and scowling, she has still somehow started whistling that stupid song, and, blast it all, she can't stop. She just can't. The shrill little tune insists on skipping somewhere out of the back of her throat and dancing down the dimly lit College stairwell - and only when Umtaz freezes in mid-step and claps her hand abruptly against her mouth (wincing as the metal ring in her lower lip presses into her flesh), does the whistling finally agree to fade into silence.  
  
But apparently, that is not the end of it. Umtaz's mouth decides to start acting weird again just seconds after she dares to draw her hand away and to heave a profound sigh of relief (Seriously, she does not know what she would do if someone heard her! Whistling in a childish, carefree way like this - it's totally not her style).  
  
This time, her lips slide apart in a smug grin. This is even worse than whistling! Whenever there is a risk of being seen, Umtaz avoids smiling like the bleedin' plague. This - this is a disaster! Frowning with the effort, she hastens to twist her lips back into the usual snarl, before she bumps into one of those scholars and they start pointing fingers at her big dopey face and laughing...  
  
But the stupid, stupid lips refuse to obey. The tingling feeling in the corners of her mouth is too strong - and it keeps mounting, too, almost taking her breath away, till she is forced to pause for a moment once again, and to inhale deeply. This soothes the tingle a little - but it is still there, creeping stealthily somewhere inside her body and sending a sort of shivering echo to the very tips of her fingers and toes.  
  
'Oh, damn it all, woman,' the she-Orc whispers ferociously to herself, skipping the last step of the staircase and stumbling out into the middle of the hall. 'Get a grip on yourself! So what if the elf gave you a personal task! No need to get all dippy!'  
  
Oh yes - she is pretty certain she has figured out the mystery behind all this whistling and grinning and whatnot. Master Neloren.  
  
She has been telling herself, time and time again, that there is nothing special about this Dark Elf. No-thing. At all. Most of the other scholars do not even remember he exists half the time - and he does not remember they exist either. Always with his nose buried in a book; always mumbling something to himself, with his eyes focused on something far, far away - something that he alone can see.  
  
She has been his apprentice for what, two months now? Yeah, it must have been about two months since she burst into the College, shoving past some squealing Altmer lady that tried to block her way on that excuse for a bridge, and bellowed loudly, chasing a wad of chewing tobacco from one side of her mouth to another, 'Hey, you mage dudes! Anyone here who can teach me to become invisible?'.  
  
Two months since some human lady (who later turned out to be Mirabelle Ervine, the Master Wizard, and about the only person in this whole joint that seems capable of whipping the absent-minded, blithering mages into shape) looked her over, her face all wrinkled up in disapproval like a deflated cow bladder, and said stiffly, 'Well, I suppose you could try Drevis Neloren, our Master of Illusion Magic. If you  can find him, that is - and focus his attention'.  
  
Two months - and for all this time, he has barely acknowledged her presence. Every time she handed in her home assignment, or lit up the spell she had just learned, or sharpened his quills or refill his inkwell (because he would never, ever have figured out how to do it himself) - he would look up from his scattered, rustling scrolls, smile vaguely and say, his tall forehead wrinkling in slight confusion as he was obviously struggling to remember who she was and what she was doing in his study,  
  
'Er... Uh... Very good... Mumtaz, was it?'  
  
'Umtaz,' she would reply, with the usual exasperation in her tone - but not as rudely as she could have.  
  
She has never had it in her to be annoyed with that elf. Not for long, anyway. Day in and day out, she has been patiently hovering behind Master Neloren's back, content with being a sort of bodiless hand that stretched out of thin air, hovering over the elf's desk, and regularly plopped down homework, and new writing... stuff (stationery, she thinks it's called - she saw the word somewhere when robbing the Bards' College), and double-decker cheese-tomato-ham-and-lettuce sandwiches ('cause seriously, if it weren't for her, the poor bookworm would have forgotten to eat and turned into a shrivelled old draugr-like thingy, sitting among reams and reams of parchment).  
  
And now - now he has finally noticed her. She has finally managed to focus his attention. He has given her an errand to run - addressing her personally, with his eyes never wandering off her face (she does not get it why so many girls, human girls especially, get so giddily excited when they talk about those gorgeous Dunmer eyes... Wait, did she just say gorgeous?).  
  
And, if she remembers correctly, he did not even mispronounce her name for once. Nope. That he didn't.  
  
'Umtaz,' he said, raising his eyebrows in a kind of childishly pleading way.  
  
Like many other wimpy elf and human fellas, he seemed more than a little intimidated by the feisty, tattooed, dreadlocked, heavily-built (and rather heavily pierced in every piercable part of the face) she-Orc. Generally, she prefers it this way - but in that particular instance, she really wished Neloren did not behave as if she were the mistress and her were the blundering little apprentice.  
  
'C-could you go out and cleanse the magical focal points around the College grounds?' he went on, stammering slightly, 'I feel that they have become unstable. I - I am unsure if you can feel it, too - but you might just be less attuned to these things than I am. Not - not that it's, er... a bad thing...'  
  
He fell silent, chewed his lips for a moment - and then, let out a small 'Ah!'-like sound, as if struck by a sudden thought, and added hurriedly, his ears flushing for some reason,  
  
'Oh - and it's... It's not a very demanding task. You just have to come up to each of the glowing stone basins you must have seen in the three Halls - and remove whatever debris that could have gotten inside them. Will - will you do that? I will add points to your grade!'  
  
'Yeah, I suppose... Gotta find some way to kill the time round this place' Umtaz replied, jerking her left shoulder and making a loud slurping sound with her usual tobacco cud.  
  
She spat it out on her way downstairs, her thumbs thrust underneath her belt and her whole air saying - oh rather, drawling indifferently - 'No big deal'.  
  
No big deal. She has been repeating that inside her mind, again and again, like some sort of prayer to one of those gods she has never cared too much for. No big deal.  
  
But deep, deep down, she knows she has been lying to herself. In truth, it is a very big deal for her; so big that, no matter how fiercely she orders herself not to, she cannot keep from whistling, or humming, or chuckling to herself, or grinning like a Khajiit on skooma. Blast it all - she is happy. She is happy that Master Neloren has entrusted her with this cleansing thing. Happy that he has realized that she is more than a floating hand. That she has a name.  
  
Her heart thumping joyfully in her chest beneath the coarse, potion-splattered fabric of her robe, Umtaz strides towards the first of the three stone basins that somehow control the magical aura around the College. She has never asked any questions or tried to find any books about how these thingamajigs work- nor has she as much as bothered to linger next to one of them and take a closer look.  
  
Not that she does not care about stuff like this - she does. Very much so. Everything magical fascinates her to no end - but she does all she can to keep her enthusiasm in check, pretending to be training in Illusion out of necessity, purely because Vex and the gang told her that if a big lumbering Orc like her was to stay in the Guild, she had to learn to merge with the shadows and make the sound of her steps unheard. She struggles to keep her frown on while reading her spell books and reciting incantations, and puts on her most exaggerated 'OhmygodsIamgonnathrowup' face whenever she is sitting at a lecture and feels that people are watching. Hey, once she even mocked old Urag in front of her fellow apprentices for being a book-loving Orc.  
  
Because it is pretty stupid, isn't, to grow all googly-eyed when you manage to fire up a sizzling sphere of light in your hand, or to gasp and polish your bench excitedly with your hind quarters when you are reading some musty old book, about a bunch of long-dead mages and kings and whatever, whom you never met and never had any business with... Right? Right.  
  
But stupid though it all is, she still freezes at the basin's side, steadying her breath in an awestruck, almost reverent way, and widens her eyes till she can feel them bulging out of their sockets.  
  
It turns out that the thing is filled to the brim with a glowing silvery-blue liquid, with wisps of soft vapour trailing along its surface - as though someone took a scoop of purest moonlight, and distilled it somehow, and then poured it generously into a vessel of rough stone, where it swirls and slurps about, powering the entire College, providing it with light, and with a gentle, soothing warmth in the bitterest wintertime, and maybe (Umtaz is not too sure) with magicka, to give those spells some extra oomph.  
  
Slowly, biting into her lips in order to keep concentrated, she leans over the basin and plunges her hands into the liquid light. It feels... what was the word... tepid. Kind of like the water in Skyrim rivers during those brief windows of time in summer when it is not scorching cold, and when you can actually swim around without having to worry about freezing off your tender parts.  
  
The light laps around Umtaz's wrists, brushing its soft swirls against her skin like a fluffy, chubby-cheeked Khajiiti kitten brushes him against you, purring with his eyes half-closed, making you go 'Oooh!' and 'Awww!' - until you snap out of it and realize your purse is gone. Umtaz grunts to herself at the mental image and slides her hand along the basin's bottom, searching for what Master Neloren called 'debris'. Soon enough, she feels her fingers thump against something firm and smooth - a soul gem, maybe? Who the hay tossed it in here?  
  
She bends down closer, peering into the glowing blueness, thinking she can make out what she has stumbled on. But she cannot see the bottom of the basin - only the soft, shimmering waves of light, and her own reflection on the splurching surface of the magical liquid.  
  
Her reflection. The sight makes Umtaz wince - she tries very hard to steer clear of mirrors of any kind; there is no need for extra reminders that she is a big green Orc, thank you very much.  
  
The face in the basin apes her scowl of disgust - and the rippling waves make it even more twisted. Huffing loudly, Umtaz jerks her head to she side - but then, turns back, as though mesmerized by the warped features of her mirror self. For a few moments, she just stands there, with her back hunched and her palms still resting on the basin's bottom, and stares blankly into her reflection's eyes. Her jaw tightens, and a vein swells on her temple, as an avalanche of bitter thoughts tears its way through her head.  
  
Gods, she is ugly. She might try to conceal it, by doing crazy things with her hair and covering herself with tattoos and making bits of metal dangle off her face; she might try to forget it, by refusing to linger in front of mirrors - but the fact remains. She is hideous.  
  
Just look at that crooked nose with widened nostrils; at that thick-lipped mouth, full of sharp teeth like a slaughterfish's; at that green skin, which, on her right cheek, turns into gnarled, faded pink because of a huge old burn mark. Look at those lopsided ears, that thick neck, that bulky frame... Blast it, if she stands like this a moment longer, her own reflection is gonna give her nightmares!  
  
Perhaps, if she had been raised among her own kind, she would have felt differently about her looks. But she grew up in a human orphanage, where even the friendliest kids around (and it was hard to be friendly in that hellhole) could not resist calling her 'Greenie', and the mistress made a regular practice of thrusting a small, cracked, smoky looking glass into the tiny Orc's hands and leering over how disgusting the child looked.  
  
'Mark me well, you little toad,' she would hiss into Umtaz's ear, digging her bony fingers into the girl's unevenly cut, bristling black hair, and pushing her head down, so that her nose almost pressed against the cold glass, 'There is not a creature in this wide, horrible world that is uglier than you. And when you grow up, you will turn into a full-blown monster! People will flee from you, little toad - screaming. They will be too revolted to touch you, too scared to look into your eyes... This is your future, little toad - mark me well'.  
  
Of course, the hag was only saying that because the sight of hot, murky tears, welling up in the Orc child's eyes, gave her a kind of sick, twisted satisfaction - same as the look of pain on the other kids' face when she drawled her usual chant that none of them was getting adopted. Her predictions did not come to pass - at least, not word for word. But the young, stupid, gullible Umtaz had no way of knowing that - and old Grelod managed to convince her that she was a monster. A toad. A sow. A bloated little spiderling. Whatever. And Umtaz has never, ever stopped believing this.  
  
At the sight of her reflection, Grelod's words echo within Umtaz's mind like a deafening rumble of thunder. The she-Orc's chest heaves, and she bares her fangs in a ferocious snarl. She realizes now, more poignantly, more woundingly than before, that she has been acting like a bloody fool. It shames her to recall how elated she has been over this stupid focal-point-cleansing.  
  
She has turned into a child, a mindless oaf chasing after butterflies. What did she think she could accomplish by all of this? Did she seriously believe that an abhorrent creature like herself would ever be able to get into the good graces of a handsome, well-spoken, scholarly elf like Master Neloren? How dared she hope that something like that could happen? How dared she feel happy when he remembered her name, when he gave her a task? This means nothing. Absolutely nothing. And she was so pathetic to ever think otherwise.  
  
Umtaz stiffens, two large lumps rocking back and forth in the corners of her jaw - and as she does, a tiny swirl of red trails across the basin's surface, followed by another, and another still. Fuelled by the she-Orc's helpless anger and broiling self-loathing, the magical liquid in the basin gradually begins to change colour, from a serene, soothing blue to a glaring crimson, to match Umtaz's rage.  
  
She does not notice this, however, and spits out, shuddering all over,  
  
'Know your place, toad. Know your goddamn place. You are not some pretty little mage girl who prances around casting spells and charming all and sundry, teachers included. You are a stinkin' thief gets back at those smooth-faced, happy ladies by pilfering their jewelry. Remember what Grelod said. Nobody needs you, nobody wants you. Certainly not Master Neloren.  
  
The blue glow has now faded away completely; the basin is seething like the caldera of a wakening volcano, casting an uneven glint on the stone walls and making Umtaz's shadow stretch out to the ceiling, huge and black and misshapen to an extent that the she-Orc appears to bear an enormous hump on her back. The blood-red liquid froths around Umtaz's hands, which are still resting on the basin's bottom; she starts violently as it dawns on her that the magical substance's temperature is changing as well. In a matter of seconds, it soars to boiling point, scalding Umtaz's skin. The she-Orc cries out hoarsely and, jerking her hands out of the basin, staggers back, blinded by pain.  
  
As soon as her fingers, crooked and blistered and dripping with sticky, glistening pus, emerge out of the liquid, the red light fades away to a soft pink, which then melts into lilac, and finally turns back to blue again. Petrified, uncomprehending, Umtaz remains standing in front of the basin, swaying slightly and gaping at her hands. Great, a tiny voice says mockingly somewhere at the back of her numb mind. Just great. Another burn to add to the list of her deformities.  
  
Presently, the hazy, silent world around her fills with the sound of shuffling steps - definitely made by several pairs of feet - and the tumult of anxious voices, which all merge together into a hectic crossfire of 'Did-you-see-that's and 'What-just-happened's. Her head clearing a little, Umtaz glances around groggily and registers the (still slightly blurred) figures of almost all of the College teachers: Fralda, Colette Marance (or was it Meerance? Merence?), Phinis Gestor, that old weirdo Arniel... And Master Neloren.  
  
'By Azura, Umtaz, you are hurt!' he exclaims, pushing his way through the agitated crowd.  
  
The only reply Umtaz is able to give him is a dazed blink; as he catches sight of her mangled hands, Master Neloren lets out a squeaky sort of gasp and, stepping so close to her that she can almost feel the warmth of his body, clasps her fingers in his.  
  
It must be the tickle of the healing spell he has started casting - at any rate, Umtaz can find no other explanation for the odd shiver that shoots through her body the moment their hands touch. Envigorating like a sip of clear water from a carefree, laughing creek on a crazy-hot summer afternoon, the feeling makes her snap back to her senses, and as she squints at the Dunmeri scholar's face, she sees that a bright spark has lit up in his eyes, giving them a look of silent, child-like wonderment. Could it be that he felt it too? Nah; she must be just imagining things.  
  
'Oh, Umtaz, Umtaz,' he laments softly, shaking his head from side to side, as restorative magic flows from his fingertips like clear white wine, washing away the throbbing blisters on his apprentice's palms. 'You should have used these...'  
  
With that, he nods at a pair of dark, oddly patterned gloves, which (as she suddenly discovers) are tucked carelessly beneath Umtaz's belt. The she-Orc knits her eyebrows. She does not remember the Dunmer giving them to her - must have been too busy drooling at the thought that he considered her useful. Gah, what a fool she is!  
  
'It's - it's my fault, though,' Master Neloren adds apologetically, seeing his apprentice scowl. 'I should have stressed the importance of the gloves... Or went out and fixed the disturbance on my own. Much as I wish to be free of the mundane concerns life so often requires, I...' he steps back, letting Umtaz's now healed hands slip out of his grasp, and looks down sheepishly at his feet. 'I realize now that it was really lazy and irresponsible of me to send someone so inexperienced to cleanse the focal points'.  
  
'Wait, you what?' Colette cuts in shrilly; Umtaz is prepared to bet a good thousand septims that there is a rant coming on. That lady has never liked her; ever since Umtaz has (rather rudely) made fun of her inferiority complex (well, she couldn't let her know that she often has the same doubts about herself, now could she?).  
  
And if the she-Orc had made that bet, those thousand septims would so have been hers now. The rant does not take too long to start.  
  
'You mean she - ' Colette points emphatically at Umtaz. 'She did this?! She made she focal points go red?! The Arch-Mage needs to hear of this! The girl has to be expelled, before she blows the entire place up! I told Faralda - told her from the start that she shouldn't have let her pass! Her kind do not belong in places dedicated to the study of magic! It's bad enough we have a horridly uncouth Orc librarian, but a blundering Orc apprentice!'  
  
'Colette, p-please,' Master Neloren says quietly. His ears are the colour of boiled beetroot, and he has begun to stammer again - but even so, there is something in his eyes that makes the elderly Breton purse her lips and back off. 'If anyone is to blame, it is me. I promise I will take it over from here, and cleanse the focal points myself. I would appreciate it if you did not drag my apprentice's race into this, either. Now, Umtaz - '  
  
He turns back to the she-Orc, his lips parting in a smile. Oh, Oblivion curse this smile! It stirs that stupid giddy feeling inside Umtaz's chest again, and she has to tear into her lips in order not to smile back.  
  
'Umtaz, could you hand me the gloves, please? And - and go back to your quarters and rest. This must have been a very shocking experience for you, and you need to fully recover'.  
  
'Yeah, sure, whatever,' the she-Orc grouses in reply, pulling out the gloves and tossing them to Master Neloren before trudging off into the snow.  
  
See? she tells herself darkly. He is sending you away! So much for being useful! Do not believe, not for a moment, that he is really concerned. He does not care for you. No-one would care... for a toad.  
  
As she makes her way gloomily and despondently into the Hall of Attainment, she spots Brelyna Maryon, one of her fellow apprentices and a Dark Elf like Master Neloren, sitting in a chair with her legs curled up beneath her, and reading a book.  
  
She likes Brelyna well enough, and even considered offering her her friendship once - but then thought better of it. Because if they started hanging out together, they would have looked too much like the pretty-pretty heroine and her lumbering sidekick... And that would have been way too humiliating.  
  
Still, she suddenly feels compelled to linger at Brelyna's side and chat with her a little.  
  
'Whatcher reading?' she asks gruffly, peering over the Dunmer's shoulder. 'Sheesh, so many words... Words, words, words...'  
  
Once again, she resorts to her trusted tactic of pretending to dislike books; but while her lips seem to curl in contempt, her eyes race along the neat dark lines, hungry to take in what is written on the page before Brelyna flips it over.  
  
'Redoran, Redoran, wherefore art thou Redoran?' Umtaz mutters slowly, repeating the line that caught her eye. 'Deny thy father and refuse thy name... What kind of high-strung garbage is that?'  
  
'It's an old play from my homeland,' Brelyna explains patiently, looking up from the tome. 'A real classic, actually. It is about two young Dunmer who meet and fall madly in love - but they are not meant to be together, because she is a Telvanni, like me, and he is a kinsmer of Redoran, a rival Great House. Their story is so tragic - and beautifully written, too! Here,' she leafs hurriedly through the book and, finding the right spot in the text, rests her fingertip underneath it and recites solemnly, ' _For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss_... It is about their first touch. I think it's an incredible image...'  
  
For a moment, Umtaz remains silent, struck by a fleeting recollection of that weird tickle or whatchamacallit, which rushed from her fingers to her heart when Master Neloren began to heal her. But she shakes that memory off like a buzzing little gnat, and says, through a forced chortle,  
  
'Hogwash'.


End file.
